The main purpose of a sound economic policy is to tackle poverty with dignity and conscience, said Cypriot Nobel Laureate Christoforos Pissaridis, stressing that achieving this goal and tackling poverty requires support for entrepreneurship, good public service and environmental policy.
At the same time, he stressed that a radical solution to corruption requires a modern public sector and a justice system, while saying that selling EU passports is “not a model of economic growth”.
Speaking at the annual Public Online Lecture of the Faculty of Economics and Management of the University of Cyprus on “Greece-Cyprus: A Development Program for the 21st Century”, Mr. Pissaridis said that jobs through which poverty will be eliminated need capital, education and entrepreneurship, while in order for the public sector to survive and to eradicate poverty, a dynamic private sector is needed.
According to Mr. Pissaridis, it also needs a good public service, active, and an environmental policy that will convince Cyprus' partners in the EU not to impose fines on it in relation to the environment.
“There is no better way to deal with poverty than to offer good jobs to those who need them,” said Pissaridis, who explained that when a person has a good job he gains dignity, he becomes the master of his wealth as much as limited and to be and feel part of the society in which he lives “.
But when he receives money in return from the state, then the opposite happens, he noted.
For this reason, he continued, entrepreneurship and fundraising for investment must be supported, along with the education that is needed.
He said that only good companies can offer these and not the public, which has the only source of income is the private sector, ie the companies themselves.
He added, however, that in order for the state to have income, it needs good companies because only they will produce in order to be able to tax them.
Asked to comment on corruption, Mr. Pissaridis said that “there is no safer way to end corruption than the big bureaucracy, which leads the citizen to give up because he will not be able to do a job with the public than normal street because it will “constantly hit walls”, as he explained.
“In the end you give an 'envelope΄ and your job is done”, he added.
Regarding the issue that arose with the naturalizations, Mr. Pissaridis said that if “everything is clear” and the courts and the Ministries take decisions quickly, “you are given much less opportunity for corruption”.
“We must try as hard as we can to prevent corruption, hence the desire, but for a radical solution we need to build a modern public sector and a justice system,” he said, citing Denmark and Sweden as examples. to get immediately what you want, as he said, without spending a single euro.
In relation to the KEP, Mr. Pissaridis said that “it is not a model of economic growth” to sell passports, adding that “if we want to bring money from abroad, we must bring it in the form of investment in the most productive sectors of the economy.” .
The construction sector is not productive because you sell land and deposit the money in the bank, he added.
Asked to say how Greece and Cyprus can be pioneering, Mr. Pissaridis expressed the need for a universal policy for the entire economy, starting with public sector reforms and then slowly starting to make market reforms leaving the Cypriot businessman to choose the sectors he will promote.
Asked how the political establishment will change, Mr. Pissaridis said that in order to do this “it takes effort from everyone and initially from the voters”, while he expressed optimism for Greece, as the Prime Minister's office is working hard, as he said.
“In Cyprus I have no hope that anything can be done”, according to today's data, he said and added that “a lot of work is needed”, which will be done internally and democratically, without revolutions.
In his presentation, Mr. Pissaridis referred to the need for a medium- and long-term development program (up to 10 years) and how the EU sees the role of the state and markets in development, something that is not followed, as he said, both in Greece and in Cyprus.
He expressed the need to change the way of thinking and to think about the whole economy and that we are no different from other EU countries, while noting that it is important that Cyprus and Greece are members of the large European market.
He also referred to the need to support innovation, to identify the advantages that Cyprus has in the EU single market.
“We need a new mentality and a new system of governance and a way to encourage innovation and development, the protection of cultural heritage and natural wealth, and a public sector away from bureaucracy to encourage private initiative,” he said.
Citing EU data, Mr. Pissaridis said that in terms of labor market productivity, Greece is in 16th place and Cyprus in 13th place in the EU, while in terms of resource allocation efficiency Greece is in 27th place and Cyprus in 26th place. He also said that Greece has a lower share of productive factors than Cyprus and is in 27th place and Cyprus in 14th place.
Regarding investments, Mr. Pissaridis said that Greece is in the last position with only 10% of GDP to be invested, while Cyprus is in the 22nd position out of the 27 member states, while in entrepreneurship, according to data from the World Bank, Greece is in 26th place and Cyprus in 23rd place.
Regarding the efficiency of the distribution of resources in the labor market, he said that Greece uses this distribution of resources with the worst efficiency, while Cyprus surpasses only Greece of all EU countries, according to data from the Commission.
“We are far behind in the EU in productivity and investment and very poor in efficiency in innovation”, while “we pay fines in the EU due to environmental unconsciousness”, he stressed and noted in relation to the index of cyclic materials, Cyprus is in 23rd place and Greece in 22nd place.
Regarding how the change is achieved, Mr. Pissaridis said that the Government of Greece is facing the problem as a whole and noted that a holistic policy is needed, which will radically change the entire system.
“We need the interior of the place to bring innovation and think about the environment to move forward,” he said, stressing that “it takes time and cooperation of all actors away from party interests, corruption and sectarian pressures.”
He also said that “we must separate the role of the state from that of the private sector in the economy” and added that both have an important role to play in the economic development of the country and must work together.
He also said that it is important that Cyprus and Greece are in the single European market and stressed that in order to achieve the necessary changes “we need to adapt our data to successful European models of small countries”, such as cultural heritage, geographical location and more.
In contrast to America, as he said, in Europe we have the welfare state, while the state offers good quality public goods, infrastructure, health and education and added that for this support we need good public service and taxation.
He added that an important economic policy is what the state taxes and how it taxes so that there are no disincentives for the private sector.
Flexicurity is successfully implemented in most of the smaller northern countries Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden where innovation has flourished and added that its proposals for the growth model of Greece are in line with this general approach to managing the economy and this is what the Cyprus.
In addition, Mr. Pissaridis said that in Cyprus we have an advantage because we have English law, which is preferred and added that after Brexit it gives us huge opportunities for foreign investment and this is also exploited by Ireland, which is the most productive country in EU.
He also said that Cyprus will never become Denmark because it has its own data, we want to keep our cultural heritage, we have human resources, especially young people with a European conscience, we have a geographical European position very different from those of Denmark and the Netherlands, we have the sea and sun, our history and much more.
“But we can take the model that other countries have to adapt it to our own data in order to succeed like them in Europe,” he stressed.
Regarding where money can be found for investments, Mr. Pissaridis said that there is no money in the country for this, foreign investors are needed and added that in Greece the biggest obstacle that foreign investors see is the legal system and bureaucracy.
Reforms in the legal system and the public service are needed, he said, adding that there is no incentive for major reform because the current regime gives even more power to political parties, while the public service has its “acquis”.
He also said that education is of paramount importance and that preschool has a significant influence on what the student does next, while adding that Greece and Cyprus have very low performance in school education, while the performance of Cypriots in understanding texts is particularly low.
Finally, Mr. Pissaridis said that more respect is needed for professors from the government, as well as the independence of universities, adding that most professors in Cyprus have graduated from good new foreign universities so “let them apply what they have learned” and in Cyprus.
Philenews / ΚΥΠΕ
